Do you filter your tap water at home and use BPA-free bottles out and about? I refuse to pay for bottled water and am very anti-plastic (see my post 10 easy ways to reduce plastic consumption) so we always use refillable drinking bottles, for their eco-friendliness and health benefits (always BPA free), including the sturdy One Green Bottle which we used for several years.
Refillable BPA-Free Drinking Bottle
We’ve recently tried the Lifestraw Play BPA-free filtering drinking bottle (children’s version of Lifestraw Go, created to make groundwater safe to drink in developing countries) and we love it.
Long-life Water Filtering
Available in five colours (we like green best!) they are really sturdy, fun and eco-friendly. The only downside for me is that they are plastic but being BPA-free and reusable for years (the filter lasts 4,000 litres; around six years if used for 2l of water a day) they’re the next best thing to perfect.
Fun for Kids
Lifestraw Play includes fun interchangeable discs in the cap for kids to swap as they choose. The discs are cardboard which I expected to ruin when washed but after nearly 6 weeks of use our owl is still going strong.
Taste Test
On comparing filtered Lifestraw Play water with tap water, the filtered water definitely tasted better; ‘cleaner’ and sweeter.
We also tested it in spring water in the Northumbrian hills where it performed excellently, filtering all sorts of mossy bits from the red, peaty water and tasting just as fresh as filtered tap water! Wild Mummy was honorary ‘Beefeater’ though, just in case it hadn’t worked.. (as with any groundwater, even if you’re filtering, think about what might be upstream – dead animals etc. Lifestraw doesn’t filter out viruses so try to use spring water where possible)
Check out the colour of that water..!
Micro-plastic Filtering
Even better for a plastic-free planet, Lifestraw recently tested for micro-plastics in various water sources. They found micro-plastic in 93% of bottled water and 83% of tap water. Lifestraw filters out all that micro-plastic, even from tap water. Wow!
Great for Kids Activities
Lifestraw Play is great for school, sports, travel, walking, camping and as we proved, filters groundwater brilliantly.
It needs washing and drying regularly and should be thoroughly dried before storing.
Caroline (aged 8) uses it everywhere including at Cubs, Forest School, kayaking, hillwalking, the beach, dancing and all day at home. It’s a little heavier than some bottles and can be hard to get the flow going but she loves how fresh the water tastes and I love everything about it – if Lifestraw develop a non-plastic bottle I’d become a shareholder!
Water for Developing Communities
Additionally the company has a fantastic ethical programme. For every single product purchased they provide a child in a developing country with clean drinking water for a whole year. Pretty impressive (and helps to justify the fairly high price).
Try a Lifestraw Play and let me know your thoughts below.
Pros
- Sturdy
- Fun exchangeable cap design
- Great colours
- BPA-free
- Child-friendly 285ml (10oz) size
- Removes 99.999999 % of bacteria, parasites & micro-plastics
- Reduces organic chemical matter (pesticides, herbicides, VOCs)
Cons
- Plastic
- Hard to suck for younger children
- If you’re really thirsty they’re too slow to get big gulps from!
- Pricey but worth it for eco-credentials
For more books and outdoor gear reviews browse Kids of the Wild’s reviews section
Join our Kids of the Wild clan
For more children’s outdoor inspiration don’t forget to sign up to the website to receive new posts as they are published and to follow Kids of the Wild on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter
Work with Me
If you would like Kids of the Wild to review a product for please get in touch via the contact page.
Buy a Lifestraw Play
Click the image to buy from Amazon
NB Kids of the Wild received a Lifestraw Play for the purposes of this review. All views and observations are my own (and Caroline’s, aged 8).
This sounds really good. We use stainless steel bottles for the same reasons you mention, i. e. dislike of plastic. But we do buy bottled water, because tap water in Ireland is fluoridated. I wonder if this bottle removes fluoride too?
#adventurecalling
My replies aren’t holding for some reason if I type them from admin…I’d replied to let you know that unfortunately Lifestraw doesn’t filter heavy metals such as fluoride which is a shame.
I love the idea of this and really want to give it a go. I’ve tried a few water filters but this looks great, and love their ethical credentials. Thanks so much for sharing #AdventureCalling
Lifestraw is a great product and great ethics. Just need a non-plastic version.!
These sound great. It’s so important that we find ways to cut our plastic consumption and reusable bottle is such an easy way to start. I have a similar filter bottle by another brand but it doesn’t come with the fun interchangeable lids for kids, so these look great for younger ones too. Thanks for joining us and apologies my comments are a little late this week, I’ve had an Ofsted inspection at my school so life has been a little hectic. #adventurecalling
What a cunning idea for creating bottle fresh water. We are lucky enough to have our very own water supply, but I do find I can taste the fluoride in mains water elsewhere. I’ve just read the comments from others, a shame it doesn’t filter for this. I do like the fun character lids though.
Thank you for sharing on #CountryKids
I know, I wish it filtered fluoride too. Maybe they’ll read the comments and work on it! I’d love my own water supply, Coombe Mill is more appealing by the day – let me know when you fancy retiring!!
these sound great, we often go walking (me hubby and dog) and in this heat we have been known to run out of juice ( in my BPA free refillable bottles) and have envied the dog as she drinks from the river.
Have to agree I hate tap water and sadly from a plastics point I use 2/ bottles of sparkling water as my drink of choice.
Sounds like a Lifestraw might be right up your river! They do various options, this one is aimed at kids, and I really love their ethics as a company too. Thanks for sharing your thoughts
Oh these may be worth a try for us because our current bottles need deep cleaning so much our they leave a funny taste
Sounds like they’d work for you. So long as you don’t use soap on the filter pieces the rest can be deep cleaned easily.
I must admit I never filter our local Normandy water as I love the taste but can certainly see the huge advantage of a product like this where you need to filter water.
Thank you so much for linking this up to #GoingGreen and big apologies for taking so long to get around to visiting. GoingGreen will be back again on Sept 3rd so I do hope you will be able to join in … and hope you all had a brilliant summer.
Thanks Rosie, we’ve had a very busy summer that’s for sure. I’ll hopefully have a few posts for #GoingGreen this month about organics as it’s September.